Prime Minister Mark Carney's office wouldn't weigh in on a push by the federal Conservatives to award the Order of Canada to controversial hockey commentator Don Cherry. Audrey Champoux, a spokesperson for Carney, declined to say whether the prime minister felt that Cherry had met the requirements for the accolade, which is awarded in recognition of exceptional achievements, extraordinary contributions...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has unveiled a new auto plan aiming to secure tariff-free access to the U.S. market. The plan would harmonize tailpipe emissions reductions with the U.S., and align Canada with the United States on Chinese tariffs in a move meant to give Canada leverage in trade talks.
PMO staffers Andrée-Lyne Hallé and Angad Dhillon now attend national caucus meetings every week to take notes for Prime Minister Mark Carney, say Liberal MPs. Less than a year after the Liberal caucus decided that senior staffers from the Prime Minister’s Office could not attend confidential weekly meetings, two senior staffers have been invited back at the request of Prime...
The prime ministers of Canada and Nordic countries have agreed to continue working to deepen economic ties as technology and international trade are increasingly used as a "coercive tool," they said in a joint statement. Prime Minister Mark Carney is concluding his time in Norway meeting with that country's prime minister, along with the leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and...
Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree insists the federal government’s approach to people associated with the Iranian regime in Canada is “aggressive,” despite having only deported one person in the last three years. Late last month, the United States and Israel began strikes on Iran, targeting the country’s leadership, with retaliatory strikes since widening the conflict in the region. Against the...
Between March 4 and 11, 2026, Abacus Data surveyed 1,931 Canadian adults as part of our ongoing federal political tracking. This wave of research captures public opinion almost exactly one year after Mark Carney became Prime Minister and formed a government following his election as Liberal Party leader. It was also conducted after the escalation of conflict in the Middle...
It rarely rates a mention when polling asks “what’s the most important issue”, but only because people thought nothing could be done about it. I’m talking about polarization in politics and by extension, in society more broadly. Have a conversation with friends and acquaintances about the state of the world, and it often doesn’t take long before someone will mention...
Donald Trump famously said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s like incredible.” All the evidence so far has suggested that he was right. But few things shift the winds of US politics like wars.
Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste is hoping to be elected in the April 13 byelection in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne, and this time, for good. Auguste opened her riding office in the Montreal-area riding today, telling supporters she wants Terrebonne to be part of the solution and have a voice at the decision-making table. Elections Canada had declared Auguste the...
There are political miscalculations, and then there are gifts to your opponents so perfectly timed they seem almost deliberate. Pierre Poilievre’s campaign to nominate Don Cherry for the Order of Canada belongs firmly in the second category. The Conservative leader declared last week that Cherry “embodies what it means to be a proud Canadian,” throwing his personal support behind a...
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith speaks out on this day. Article content But the premier is not on about budgets or pipelines or the place of Alberta in Canada. Smith is talking about Don Cherry, the man also known by his nickname, Grapes. For years, for far too many years, Don Cherry has been snubbed by the establishment types in this...
It’s always weird to be reminded that the world as it is – to borrow a phrase, if I may – was a very different place not so long ago, and that what now seems constant and obvious was once strange or unknown. The phone you unthinkingly grab from your pocket to do, well, everything, used to be a crazy...
For a career banker, Mark Carney plays the role of Machiavellian politician very well. The prime minister has now plucked a third MP from the opposition benches and is just two by-election wins in safe Liberal seats away from a majority government. This time Carney’s fruit was harvested from the NDP, not the Conservatives, and came in the form of...
The balance of power is shifting in favour of the western democracies. With all the controversy over the fast-moving war in Iran, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that the world balance of power and international correlation of forces are shifting in favour of the western democracies. Since the reinstallation of the present U.S. administration less than...
Much is being made of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s successful efforts to poach MPs from both the Conservative and New Democratic parties in an effort to convert his minority Liberal government into a majority. But these MPs’ parliamentary perambulations are small potatoes compared to events in the early 2000s. Floor-crossings in those years helped determine the future of the conservative...
“Let the party begin.” That’s how Mark Carney started his first press conference after being sworn in as Canada’s 24th prime minister, on March 14, 2025, after a whirlwind leadership contest.
We live in a world of chatbots. The economic and social promise of large language models has driven the Western world into an AI mania that’s driving our stock markets and leading to massive investments in data centres and energy infrastructure. Yet we still don’t really know how AI works — nor the very real impacts it can have on...
The three federal by-elections that will happen in April are going to be consequential. They’ll determine whether the federal Liberal caucus will have enough members to carry votes in the House of Commons without relying on support from other parties.
A LITTLE LESS THAN a year after the April 2025 federal election, public opinion data continues to break strongly in favour of Mark Carney’s Liberal government. The latest federal poll by Leger suggests the Liberal Party now holds a substantial lead in voting intentions. The survey, conducted from February 27 to March 2 among 1,627 respondents, puts the Liberals at...
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT Donald Trump is not primarily waging war on Iran. In waging war on Iran, Trump is waging war on human reason. I do not say that war with Iran is inherently unreasonable. Nor do I mean that Trump has offered poor justifications, or justifications that most people would recognize as inadequate, in defence of his war in...
After Nunavut MP Lori Idlout announced Tuesday night that she would join the Liberals, a grim-looking Don Davies — interim leader of the NDP — had the dreary task of responding. “The position of the New Democratic Party is long-standing and clear,” he said, accurately. “To us, the decision of the voters at the ballot box is a sacred trust...
Pierre Poilievre recently declared that he would prefer not to have an election anytime soon. The Conservative leader may be in the process of getting that wish. Thanks to another floor-crossing over to the Liberals and three byelections now under way, Mark Carney may have the 172 seats he needs for a majority government, possibly plus one additional MP.
There are three federal by-elections currently underway for voting on April 13; in the ridings of University-Rosedale, Scarborough Southwest, and Terrebonne. If at least two of these go Liberal, which is almost guaranteed, Prime Minister Mark Carney will have successfully performed the political equivalent of the miracle of the loaves and fishes: he’ll have created a majority government out of...
With polling numbers showing support for the governing Liberals approaching numbers not seen since Brian Mulroney’s “grand coalition” win in 1984, it is only natural for Prime Minister Carney’s entourage to begin feeling brave about converting those numbers into a snap election sweep. Some in Liberal circles will argue that the moment has arrived to strike while the iron is...
It wasn’t that long ago that the federal NDP held the balance of political power in Canada. Now, it looks like it will be lucky to hold onto any political power at all. The defection by Nunavut MP Lori Idlout leaves them with just six federal MPs, and that’s without accounting for Alexandre Boulerice’s widely rumoured move to provincial politics...
That the riding of Terrebonne is at all competitive tells you a lot about Quebec’s shifting political landscape in the Mark Carney era. Until last year, the suburban riding on Montreal’s Rive-Nord had been a Bloc Québécois stronghold for three decades, with the exception of a one-term flirtation with the New Democratic Party in the ephemeral Orange Wave of 2011...
Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government is open to debate on a ban on social media for minors as part of their upcoming online harms legislation, something that other countries are also experimenting with, considering that the harms of these addictive platforms have become fairly self-evident when it comes to mental health outcomes. It may sound like...
By luring now-former NDP Lori Idlout across the floor to join the Liberal caucus, Prime Minister Mark Carney has brought his Liberals up to 170. With three byelections pending, two of which are in reliably safe Liberal seats and the third a Liberal-Bloc tossup, the Liberals seem set to achieve a bare minimum majority in the near future, almost a...
It has felt like a constant stream of floor crossers for months. But this was the big one. Nunavut MP Lori Idlout’s move to defect from the depleted New Democrats to the governing Liberals has put Prime Minister Mark Carney firmly in charge of the political calendar – and weakened two of his opponents with one blow. The most obvious...
In wartime, U.S. presidents usually stay in the background. Not Donald Trump on Iran. One minute he’s saying the war will soon be over; the next, he’s saying it won’t. He’s posting endlessly on Truth Social, doing press conferences, scrums, taking calls from individual reporters, giving marathon speeches. He’s the President who never shuts up. He’s turned the Oval Office...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s imminent majority government is a good thing for the country, according to a 43 per cent plurality of Canadians in a new Angus Reid Institute poll who prefer increased stability (versus 39 per cent who said it flouts the 2025 election result.) The decision by the NDP MP for Nunavut, Lori Idlout, to cross the floor...
Liberal candidate Tatiana Auguste is hoping to be elected in the April 12 byelection in the Montreal-area riding of Terrebonne, and this time, for good. Auguste opened her riding office in the Montreal-area riding today, telling supporters she wants Terrebonne to be part of the solution and have a voice at the decision-making table. Elections Canada had declared Auguste the...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says Ottawa is planning to revamp its funding for Canadian athletes and will tackle the issue "very deliberately" over the next six months — news that comes just before a federal commission on the future of Canadian sport releases its final report. Carney shared the information to a group of Canadian athletes in Holmenkollen, just north of
Prime Minister Mark Carney says that countries like Canada do not need to have oil reserves as a net exporter, after the energy minister announced Canada will contribute 23.6 million barrels to help stabilize international energy markets. The 32 member countries of the International Energy Agency, including Canada, have agreed to a co-ordinated release of oil stocks as the war...
Donald Trump's miscalculations on the impact of a war in Iran go well beyond the price of oil, and if the war doesn't end soon, we're all, Canada included going to feel it. Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert join for the regular Friday Good Talk where we'll also discuss: more floor crossings, more dilemmas for the NDP, and a strange...
Mark Carney’s government is in talks with Saskatchewan towards reaching an energy deal that could fast-track federal approvals of that province’s uranium mining projects, speed development of small modular nuclear reactors and build out its energy grid, the Star has learned. Much as it did with Alberta, the federal government is negotiating with Premier Scott Moe’s government to develop a...
Ever since the U.S. launched its war against Iran on Feb. 28, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has said her top priority is helping Canadians who want to leave the Middle East. As of Friday, nearly 8,500 Canadians and permanent residents have made it home to Canada from the region, while more than a thousand have left the Middle East...
When you walk into the Club Pays coffee shop in Montreal, the first thing you see are the posters with Quebec sovereignty slogans plastered on every wall. Complete with comfortable couches, a polished-wood espresso bar, a small stage and even a conference room, Club Pays -- country club in English -- opened its doors to the public on Friday and...
The former secretary general of NATO says he doesn't think allies will be pulled further into the conflict in the Middle East, but he's concerned the ongoing war with Iran will benefit Russia's economy and take the world's attention away from the invasion of Ukraine. "NATO has never played any important role in important Middle East conflicts," Jens Stoltenberg said...
The federal government is currently weighing whether to renew funding meant to address a massive backlog of airline passenger complaints — funding that if not extended could result in Canadians having to wait longer to have their cases heard.
It’s not just floor-crossing MPs warming up to Prime Minister Mark Carney. Canadians are showing high support for the Liberals and many would now back the party’s re-election, according to a new Abacus Data poll. The poll shows the Liberals have 46 per cent support nationally, an 11-point lead over the Conservatives who are at 35 per cent. The NDP...
The American military has ordered 2,500 marines and an amphibious assault ship to the Middle East, a U.S. official said Friday, in a major addition of forces in the region after nearly two weeks of war with Iran. Meanwhile in the Iranian capital, a large explosion rocked a central square where thousands were gathered for an annual state-organized rally to...
Opposition is mounting among Quebec's federal Conservatives to their own party's push to award the Order of Canada to controversial hockey commentator Don Cherry. In a social media post late Thursday, the party's Quebec lieutenant Pierre Paul-Hus said he believes appointing Cherry would be "a bad idea" given his "unacceptable remarks toward the Quebec nation and francophones." The Order of...
German chancellor says all but U.S. in G7 opposed move. Three world leaders — two of them members of the G7 — stood united in opposition Friday to the Trump administration's decision to ease sanctions on Russia's shadow fleet of oil tankers. Canada's Mark Carney, Germany's Friedrich Merz and Norway's Jonas Støre were driven onto a snowy mock battlefield in...
The Canadian economy lost more jobs in February than it has in four years — but Prime Minister Mark Carney says when compared to the United States, we're doing pretty good. "If you look at the performance of the labour market over the last six months we've created over 80,000 jobs," he said in Norway on Friday. "The United States...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he's planning to pitch a "realistic proposal" to end U.S. tariffs on the Canadian auto industry this weekend. He says his proposed auto pact would align regulations between Canada and the U.S. and remove the GST from Canadian-made vehicles. He told reporters his plan, which he intends to roll out on Sunday, is "literally the...
Macdonald, Chrétien each saw nearly 10 opposition MPs join them during their tenures. Floor-crossing has always been a feature of Canadian politics dating back to the first Parliament — and seeing four opposition MPs jump ship to join the government in a matter of months is rare but not unprecedented. Prime Minister Mark Carney has only been in office for...
Canada and its allies are prepared to defend the arctic, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday in Bardufoss, Norway, after observing NATO's Cold Response exercises. He held a news conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Asked by a German reporter whether the "conflict" over the Trump administration's demands for Greenland is settled, the...
The Trump administration has expanded its trade investigations to 60 countries, including Canada, in an effort to shore up the president's tariff policies. "We are trying to move very quickly," United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC Friday. "We are trying to move in a matter of months." Greer's office announced Wednesday that it was launching investigations of the...
A federal byelection in Terrebonne on April 13 could help the Liberals secure a majority government. The vote was ordered after the Supreme Court of Canada overturned the Liberal candidate’s one-vote victory from the last federal election due to an uncounted mail-in ballot.
The Conservatives have now named candidates for all three upcoming byelections. The party announced that middle school teacher Diana Filipova will run in Scarborough Southwest. That seat was left vacant after former Liberal cabinet minister Bill Blair resigned to take over as Canada's high commissioner in the U.K.
Ontario is set to make Premier Doug Ford and cabinet members' records secret as it "modernizes" freedom-of-information laws. Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement Minister Stephen Crawford says the province is also updating its cybersecurity protections. Crawford says the changes will help protect cabinet confidentiality. He says the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act has not been...
Canada lost 84,000 jobs and the national unemployment rate rose to 6.7 per cent in February — 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous month, according to Statistics Canada. The Labour Force Survey for February was released Friday, and comes after January’s report showed the unemployment rate was 6.5 per cent. Those job losses were sharply lower than expected and...
A B.C. legislator who has sought to scrap the province's Human Rights Code and ban land acknowledgments, and has blamed the Tumbler Ridge mass shooting on "transgender ideology," is facing a recall campaign from constituents who say she has left them without "coherent" representation. Tara Armstrong has also been accused of spreading hate by the NDP government and is facing...
Ontario's payout to Elon Musk's SpaceX over a cancelled Starlink contract will remain a secret after the two sides agreed to a confidential settlement, The Canadian Press has learned. The province said the kill fee for what was set to be a $100-million deal is "significantly less than the contract value," and the amount paid out was part of a...
Conservative leader will also stop in Windsor for a press conference. Canada's Official Opposition leader is launching his trip to the U.S. with a stop in Detroit to talk about the automotive industry and cross-border trade, per a press release. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will visit the Motor City on Friday to "meet with auto industry leaders and elected representatives...
Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Norway today, where he will observe NATO's Cold Response exercises alongside the Norwegian prime minister. Carney is on the trip at the invitation of Norway, which hosts these joint NATO exercises every two years. This year, about 25,000 troops from 14 different nations are taking part in the exercises, which are aimed at enhancing...
Prime Minister Mark Carney touched down in Norway early Friday where he will get important face time with the Nordic country’s leader and the German chancellor before taking in a major NATO wargaming exercise that includes Canadian troops. Both countries are backing a bid by German submarine-maker TKMS to sell Canada 12 new submarines — a multi-billion dollar program that...
A new survey from Nanos Research for CTV News found 43 per cent of Canadians are less likely to travel to the United States in 2026, compared to the previous year. Thirty-eight per cent said they don’t vacation in the United States in general, while just four per cent said they are likely to spend more leisure time south of...
A former Northern MP who crossed the floor of the House of Commons decades ago is applauding Lori Idlout’s decision to do the same, saying it is easier to influence policy from the government side than the opposition. Peter Ittinuar was the first Inuk ever elected to Parliament and represented the riding of Nunatsiaq, which later became Nunavut.
As Canada approaches its second year of deciding whether to buy a full fleet of American-made F-35 fighter jets, Defence Minister David McGuinty is already thinking of joining a British-Italian-Japanese partnership working on a next-generation air force fighter. Joining the so-called Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP, could make it much harder for Canada to ditch its plan to buy...
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels.
The World Anti-Doping Agency is considering rewriting its rules to try barring President Donald Trump and all U.S. government officials from attending the LA Olympics in 2028 in a move that could also have implications for the World Cup being hosted by the U.S. this summer.
NEW YORK (AP) -- As the U.S. and Israel's war against Iran continues to upend energy markets and supply chains worldwide, the Trump administration says it might suspend maritime shipping requirements under a more than century-old law known as the Jones Act.
1. A federal judge on Friday quashed Justice Department subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve in January, a severe blow to an investigation that has already attracted strong criticism on Capitol Hill.
The prime ministers of Canada and Nordic countries have agreed to continue working to deepen economic ties as technology and international trade are increasingly used as a "coercive tool," they said in a joint statement. Prime Minister Mark Carney is concluding his time in Norway meeting with that country's prime minister, along with the leaders of Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and...
DND says country placed 'caveat' on U.S. intelligence-sharing for small-boat strikes. The Department of National Defence says it has safeguards in place to prevent intelligence from being shared with elements of the U.S. military that have carried out numerous lethal strikes on small boats in the Caribbean. In a statement to CBC News, the department said that intelligence gathered during...
Oil prices continued to soar on Monday as the Iran war intensified, threatening production and shipping in the Middle East and pummeling financial markets. The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, surged to as high $119.50 per barrel early in the day but later was trading above $101 per barrel, up 9%. West Texas Intermediate, the...
The Canadian government will face questions about its “confusing” stance on the Iran war when the House of Commons hosts a debate on the conflict tonight, according to former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy. “It’s still not clear about where Canada stands on the fundamental issue of the rule of law, which says aggression is an international crime,” Axworthy told...
Saudi Arabia sharpened its warnings to Iran early Monday, telling Tehran it would be the "biggest loser" if it continues to attack Arab states. The Saudi statement came after a new drone attack apparently targeted its massive Shaybah oil field. The kingdom dismissed comments by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Saturday that Iran had halted its attacks on Gulf Arab...
Canada is confronting a rapidly expanding illicit nicotine market that has evolved well beyond traditional contraband tobacco. Criminal networks that once focused on cigarettes now traffic in high-nicotine disposable vapes, unauthorized nicotine pouches, and a sprawling ecosystem of online black market platforms. Fragmented regulation, uneven enforcement, and the rise of e-commerce have created structural vulnerabilities that illicit actors are exploiting...
War in energy-producing regions often reveals the hidden architecture of globalization. The ongoing US-Iran conflict is doing precisely that. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has begun transforming energy trade into “risk trade,” where freight insurance, shipping routes, and geopolitical exposure can become as decisive as underlying supply. For China and other Asia-Pacific importers, this shift has two strategic implications...
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
For a moment there, it looked like Mark Carney would be the torchbearer for countries opposed to Trump’s big power politics. Now, not so much. In fact, it seems Prime Minister Carney is ready to embrace the “end of the international rules-based order” rather than oppose it – thanks to the confusing and contradictory statements by the Canadian government following...
On Thursday, the Liberal government finally got around to asking ordinary Canadians how to fix the country’s premier transparency law, the Access to Information Act. The Act, dating from 1983, empowers citizens to hold governments to account through requests for internal information.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was a monster. For close to thirty years, he presided over a police state that violated human rights at home and exported terror to the world. Now he is dead, crushed by the American assault on Iran that flattened his compound and sparked a regional war. From Tehran to Toronto, thousands of Iranians are celebrating...
Peter Mazereeuw tackles the hot topic of immigration fraud, a problem that has spurred the government to introduce controversial changes in law, and the opposition to demand more. He speaks to Ravi Jain, an immigration lawyer who makes the case that immigration consultants are the root of the problem, and Dory Jade, a spokesperson for professional immigration consultants who defends...
After back-to-back-to-back successes in attracting Conservatives to join his team, Prime Minister Mark Carney has secured a fourth floor-crosser. And this time, it's from the NDP. Are more still to come? The House Party podcast team — Catherine Cullen, Daniel Thibeault and Jason Markusoff — reunite to talk about Carney's ability to lure MPs from all sides of the political...
Donald Trump's miscalculations on the impact of a war in Iran go well beyond the price of oil, and if the war doesn't end soon, we're all, Canada included going to feel it. Bruce Anderson and Chantal Hebert join for the regular Friday Good Talk where we'll also discuss: more floor crossings, more dilemmas for the NDP, and a strange...
At Issue this week: A fourth member of parliament ditches their party to join Mark Carney’s Liberals. The Conservatives push the government to step up deportations of Iranian Revolutionary Guard members. And Pierre Poilievre takes his speaking tour to the U.S.
